Pete Wright: I'm Pete Wright.
Andy Nelson: And I'm Andy Nelson.
Pete Wright: Welcome to the next reel when the movie ends.
Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins.
Pete Wright: Ju-on the curse two is over. That was in the script, Andy. That was scripted content.
Andy Nelson: A lot of Kayako's fantastic vocal noises, which come from the director. Did you know that?
Pete Wright: You you just I mean, we're right out of the gate and you're dropping knowledge bombs.
Andy Nelson: Just throwing it out there. Yep. Amazing.
Pete Wright: The Curse two, Andy, you had not seen this one. You had because you've been watching only Japanese horror movies for like a year.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I I mean, I watched it. I've seen it twice now, but all within like the last month. So Okay.
Pete Wright: So we're in about the same place.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Pete Wright: I I struggled a little bit with this one. Really? I'm just gonna say it out the right out the gate. And it's not because of any I mean, think it would have been better. What this this movie and the first one should have been one movie, and there are all kinds of reasons that they're not one movie.
And they're budgetary. They're logistical. They're released. They're, you know, stage at the director's career, like, all kinds of things. But after seeing and really enjoying the first movie, watching this one and starting with the, like, thirty minutes of first movie in this one, leaving not very much continuing story, it it felt to me a little bit of a of a retread.
I found myself a little bit a little bit tired. Now does that mean it's bad? No. Not at all. And I still enjoy the the Kayako, and I I I enjoy what they briefly did at the end with Kayako to kind of expand the the universe of horror.
But mostly, I was just like, I've seen this movie before, and this would have been better if it had been put into the first one. And I had to do some, like, some figuring out why do they did they do it this way? And it turns out it's not just this movie. I do you have you experienced this where they they play so much of the first movie in second movies in your survey of of Japanese horror?
Andy Nelson: I don't think I've ever experienced this before where you get where you get as extensive a recap. I mean, recaps are certainly something that films do. Like, we see that even in the latest, the last in the line of the mission impossible films, they spend
Pete Wright: It was practically j horror.
Andy Nelson: Giving giving you all those little flashes of what we had missed from the previous film or films. And so, you know, it's it's a nice way to have a reminder, but I I think largely this one was I mean, it was a it was a TV. It was on TV, and they needed to fill the space. And I don't know. The shooting time, I think, for both films was nine days, something really insane.
And so they just rolled over mostly the last two stories from the last film and plopped it onto the beginning of this one as essentially a refresher course as to what had gone on, kind of the the key story points so that we could remember where we left things off. And it was like, you're right. It's an extensive we're you know, previously, on our last episode, like, it's like, previously, our last episode, here's the last half of the last episode is really what we're getting here. That's what it is.
Pete Wright: This is what I I found out. The it's produced in the the direct to video v cinema market. Budgets are low. Production timelines are tight. It was very common for sequels or, quote, second parts to include significant recap footage.
Viewer many viewers later rented or bought these movies weeks or months apart, often without having seen the previous one. The previously on structure is a pragmatic way to onboard new viewers. It's an extended catch up before the new material starts. From a budgetary perspective, by redo reusing extensive footage from the cursed one, the filmmakers padded the runtime to save money, resources, and time that would otherwise have been spent shooting new material. So practically, I get it.
And I think this movie in particular allows Shimizu to lean into the concept of repetition as a storytelling device, which is so much about what the curse one and then the entire arc of the Juwan series is about. And that goes the nature of the curse and all of that. But I think I struggled with it being sold as a second separate movie. It felt like it wasn't quite doing enough to to be as engaging as the first one for me.
Andy Nelson: And and that's interesting because I I mean, I I definitely see the point is when it comes to, like, that first half hour of just kind of getting that, the retread of those stories, you know, getting a setup of, like, the backstory of Kayako and really getting an understanding of what had happened last time. You know, we're largely following, like, the teacher's story. We get kind of like him coming over to the house, meeting Toshio, having the reminders front and center that Kayako had some crazy crush on him. Her husband discovered it, killed her and the kid and the cat, and now she's pissed and is gonna take down the world. And she comes down the stairs just as he gets a phone call from Kayako's husband who is at his house with his wife saying, hey.
Your baby's been born. It's a girl. And why does he know? Because he's killed the wife, and he's got the the baby in a sack and just killed it. It's horrifying.
So all of that is repeated. And then and so we get a sense of, okay. This is the setup for Kayako. And then we get the last story, which is the one about the real estate agent who bought the house and is now figuring out how to sell it because it's cursed. And so he brings in his sister who has, you know, the ability to kind of sense presences and such.
And so she kind of says, hey. Bring a bottle of sake in there. If the new owner tries it and it's fine, they're not gonna be affected by the presence. But if they taste something funny, then they shouldn't move in. That's kind of her plan.
And we leave off with her finding out from her brother that he's sold the house. She decides to go buy the house and sees the new owner come out, and then he sees his wife in the window. She looks a little creepy.
Pete Wright: Doesn't look right.
Andy Nelson: She doesn't look right. And then she's just like, okay. I'm out of here. And that's kind of the end of the first film. And then we follow her here.
Right? That's that's kind of where things kick off here is now we're like, okay. Let's let's follow this story. Well and we kind of knew from the previous film that her nephew, her her brother, the realtor, his son is starting to act weird. Yeah.
And now we we follow Kyoko. She she goes over to her brother's apartment to check on his son and see what's up. He has turned on the TV and, like, creepy stuff is going on. Right? And and and she comes up and then they it's I don't know.
It's like a weird wall of, like, a vision of something that had happened, and it's like, I don't know. Are they seeing Kayako's husband when he had because we because we find out
Pete Wright: Murdering Madame. Yeah.
Andy Nelson: This is the apartment of the teacher from the first film, and this is where Kayako's husband came and killed them and the baby. So Yeah. That's kind of how the new material kicks off. And I'll say moving into the new material, how we follow her and and her family and how it expands, how we follow the police officers who were investigating and expands, I actually found all of the new material a fantastic continuation of the story. Like, I really enjoyed Fantastic.
Every yeah. I loved what they were doing with everything going on here. If I if I have an issue, it's just the fact that I would love to have had the entire film be new material. Like, you know, and and so this additional thirty minutes, it's like I mean, it is a nice refresher, but it makes essentially, like, a forty five minute film of new material of is what we're getting here, which I still really, really liked. I I loved the evolution of this story.
I just I I wish that it had been a full film.
Pete Wright: Talk to me about how you feel about the, I'll say, evolution, but that that might not be a fair word, of the paranormal material. Right? How does this story move the ghost stuff forward for you?
Andy Nelson: Well, we had in the last film scene okay. There the house has this curse in it of Kaeiko Toshio, and Toshio has somehow, I don't know, absorbed the cat's energy. I'm not exactly sure how the cat's death is involved, but Toshio meows.
Pete Wright: He swallowed the cat. Yeah. That's basically what goes on
Andy Nelson: with Toshio, which is strange. But then we also see that one of the boys who's living in this house, he goes to school. And as we find out from the short film, he ends up running into Toshio somewhere and ends up getting he disappears. But his girlfriend is at school. She's, as far as we know, like, never been to the house.
She's looking for him. He's not answering his phone. She goes to the school and is waiting for him, and Toshio appears and takes her from the school. So now we know they're expanding outside of the house, and they're kind of reaching out to if you have a remote connection to anyone who's ever been here, we can now come after you. That's kind of the scope of it.
And we continue that here as they go to all these different places. We follow Kyoko as she as she, she goes to Tatsuya and his son and out to the country where, you know, it's I think Tatsuya takes Kyoko to their parents, and she's kind of staying with the parents because she's something's clearly wrong with her. So that they're taken down. But, really, it's Tatsuya's son who we kind of get some of this new material because he seems his brain seems to have been like, I don't know what's going on with him. Like, he doesn't seem as affected by the ghosts in the same way.
Like, they're not just killing him or something, but he seems to surely be broken in some way. Right? Like, he survives the house out in the country, and now he's back at school. The police officers are following him and everything.
Pete Wright: Right.
Andy Nelson: But but we have an ever expanding cast of of, Kayakos who now come after him. And that's, like, the big change. It it created one of the most frightening images of the film for me, which is when he's in the classroom, and it's, I don't know, dozens of them banging through that kind of that translucent panes of glass.
Pete Wright: That was that I I totally agree. Although, I think that the scene immediately before where you have a Kayako crawling toward him and then another Kayako entering the frame
Andy Nelson: Right.
Pete Wright: Was Right. Like, that's the the reveal that, you know what, there are they're all over the place, the Kayakos, and they can be in the same place at once. It's not just like, oh, the because there's another scene where they're running through the school and or where he's running through the school, and there's Kayako behind him and then suddenly goes down the stairs, there's Kayako coming up the stairs. And you think, oh, I I mean, at least in my head, I was like, well, it's a ghost. It's gonna go wherever it wants to go.
Andy Nelson: And it's like the horror trope, like Friday the thirteenth sort of thing. Like, he's behind you. He's behind you. And then suddenly it's like, how did you get in front of me? Yeah.
Yeah. It's like I was like, oh, they're pulling that trope.
Pete Wright: But they weren't pulling that trope. What they were pulling was a whole new trope, which is they multiply. And that last thing, where we see two in one in one scene crawling toward him from two different sort of vectors was terrifying. And then it cuts briefly to that horrifying shot with all of the Kyokos outside, but it does make me think, they're ghosts. Why are they banging on the glass?
Like, what what is why is the glass suddenly keeping them outside? I I didn't I don't like thinking about that stuff. I just want it to be scary, and it it did take me out of the film a little bit. And so that's why I wonder, like, what was the purpose of expanding the Kaiko's? Like, what are is it expanding the Kaiko's, like, paranormal ability for plot, or should we have seen that coming all along?
Andy Nelson: I mean, it's an interesting question because, like, it's not like these are ghosts that we've seen walk through walls. Right? We've never seen that. Right? Yeah.
That's not something they do. They appear I don't know. Do they disappear? I guess I'm not sure if we've actually seen them disappear either. I don't think so.
They just they're just there. And they there is a physical element to them, which is interesting that they seem to be more present than not. And so I can understand the windows as far as them banging because it's just, I don't know, in some way, it's more horrifying to just scare somebody by having, like, you're surrounded by all of these kayakos. They're all waiting to get you.
Pete Wright: Well, because then it becomes a metaphor for the fact that kayakos everywhere. Right? It's just a visual metaphor for the the terror, the fear of existing in a world with with Kayako
Andy Nelson: at large. You're surrounded and yeah. You just that's it's it for you. But I don't know. I mean, to your question, it does like, there's nothing that ever hinted that we should be expecting this at some point.
And of the rest of the franchise, I've only ever seen the next film. I might have seen the grudge two, actually. I can't remember if I saw the Japanese the grudge two or the American the grudge two. But, anyway, as memory serves, like, I don't feel we ever cross into this territory or in those films. And so I'm wondering if this was just kind of a one time super creepy.
Let's just, you know, metaphor or maybe it's just metaphorically saying that she's she's ever expanding and and and algorithmically, she's, you know, always going to exponentially be able to kind of take down everything until eventually the whole world has been kaya code.
Pete Wright: Well, and it may it may be. The other thing I'm I'm thinking just now is that maybe what we're not interpreting is the, you know, especially if it's a metaphor for this sort of weight of terror if we're not weighing what's his name sitting in the corner of the kid?
Andy Nelson: Oh, the son?
Pete Wright: Yeah. He's the one who's being terrorized by Kaiko. What we're not talking about is maybe he's seeing the Kaiko's that he's afraid of. Right? Maybe it's it's hit the weight of the curse on him.
Yeah. Nobuyuki. Nobuyuki. Yeah. So I, you know, I don't know.
But I I think it's that kind of stuff to me was really interesting. And and it's and I struggle a little bit with it because you've only you've seen the next film. I haven't seen it yet. And Oh, have you never seen it? The original the the Japanese grudge?
No.
Andy Nelson: Oh, okay.
Pete Wright: I've seen the I've only the grudge that I've seen is the one that the American one with Buffy.
Andy Nelson: Okay. Interesting.
Pete Wright: Yeah. And so the fact that it doesn't like, this wasn't a leveling up of her abilities, like her super ghost hero abilities, I don't I don't know if I should be concerned about that. Is that a continuity thing?
Andy Nelson: I don't know if it's continuity. I don't I don't know how to take it. I I feel a lot of it boils down to the fact that this was a different type of project that Shimizu was making. Right? It was a direct to video v cinema horror short kind of a very short film.
It was only, what, seventy six minutes. And so I think the energy was just like, let's just amp it up and make creepy stuff. And because I want to I want to, just make something that is scary and will terrify an audience. And, you know, in the back of his mind, I'm sure part of it is just like, I want a chance to do something bigger. You know?
And that's, I think, this in some way, you can say it's almost a calling card. And where he goes from here is I don't know if it's fair to say a reset, but I think there is some element of that where these are kind of crafting the origins of this story that we're gonna kind of see again in in a different way. But when we get to the grudge, I you'll see some similarities. But
Pete Wright: it's theatrical curse.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Tha theatrical, bigger budget. Right. The whole thing. Like, let's step out of this world.
And, you know, it's, I mean, it's, you know, like David Cronenberg remaking crimes of the future, all those, you know, decades later. It's it's like a filmmaker who's who's told a story and then getting a chance to tell it again with a little more money and little more know how. And I think that's really where we're going. So I I feel like in some and, I haven't seen what the films or however many are in this franchise. It's a big franchise.
I don't know if we get back to that place where suddenly Kayako is everywhere like we see here. But I do feel like in a way, these two films that we've been talking about are kind of their own hole, and then they kind of reset and start over again.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I I can I can certainly understand that? And I I I do think, for me, this is one of those movies, had I seen it when I was, you know, 17, I would have taken the VHS tapes, and I would have cut them together on my side by side deck. Because I think I think I would appreciate this film more watching it in one go.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I can see that. I can see that.
Pete Wright: With with the first one, for sure.
Andy Nelson: Because the first one was, seventy minutes. And so if you take that and you throw on the the forty six minutes of new material from this, you know, you're at a two hour movie. So Yeah.
Pete Wright: Right. You're at a two hour movie that actually builds to something really pretty dramatic, that final scene with all the the Kayakos. Right? Like, that's that's a great way to end this thing. Well, especially because we we end it with the the three girls.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. With the little denouement.
Pete Wright: We have the little denouement. Right? Which is which is a lovely sort of twisty bit at the end. So some of the of the issue that I have with this movie is around the practicalities of making it, to your point, as a calling card, and we I I have to honor that. I I respect that.
Like, he made the movie that he could make, the movies that he could make. And they look good, and they create a character that has become sort of legend over the last two and a half decades. And it's it's very cool and very scary and very gruesome. Some of my favorite bits in this movie are the bits where you actually see how the curse it's it's not just people confronting Kayako or the cat kid. It is people confronting one another as a result of being impacted by the curse when when, was it Yoshimi walks around behind Hiroshi and beats him with the the frying pan from the high, high angle.
That was horrifying. That was a horrifying moment of humanity on humanity violence that I thought was perfectly placed right in the middle of this movie, and it just amplified kind of the cyclical nature of how the curse impacts people even when you don't have the actual manifestation of ghosts in frame. And that was some of the best stuff for me.
Andy Nelson: Well and what I like about those moments is they're not characters we ever are following, really. Right? We only meet them at the Right. First film. We and it's just a flash as he walks out and we see her looking out the window.
That's it. That's the only bit we get. And then we talk about them. We know there are new people living in this house, but we really never see them. And then suddenly, we're in the house with them, and they're having this conversation.
And it's a real surprise when suddenly she's just decided to, like, we can tell there's something wrong with her. Like, she's looking different. Tatsuya comes over to talk to them and just kind of check on them and finds the drawing and stuff. And the wife is the one who starts talk it's like she does that thing where she lowers her head, and he doesn't know anything's different. But we do, we can tell that the voice coming out of her is Kayako as she's talking about that picture and everything.
So we get a little bit a taste of who they who she is, really, and we can tell that, okay. She's been now kind of possessed by Kayako. She's doing something here. And yeah. And so we're really not surprised when we get that frying pan bit.
And we never see what happens to her, though. Right? Or is she one of the ones that when we're every time we have the police involved, they talk about the people who are dead and then the people who have just disappeared. Like, there's a number of people that we've seen over the course of this. Like the son, from the last one whose girlfriend gets killed by Toshio in the classroom, he just disappears.
And the police are even saying, like, one of them is just like, you know, what happened to them? And he's like, one of them could be the killer. Like, they're they so they're thinking these things. And so that's an interesting moment. Like, what happens to this wife?
Who knows? Like, weird
Pete Wright: Who knows?
Andy Nelson: Yeah. What does Kai does Kayako is is she, like, a body that Kayako has possessed that is now in that courtyard at the end? You know? I don't know.
Pete Wright: Yeah. It's crazy. It's crazy. And so that that stuff, I think, is really effective. Like, I like the fact that they don't do us any favors by tying up every mystery, every everybody who's who's missing.
Andy Nelson: Well, and and I I will say you're talking about just moments that you that really were effective for you. Yeah. We we have a moment where this is when, Kyoko is taken to her parents' house out in the country. And she's just sitting in the room, like, rocking a baby doll, and she's totally seems possessed. Right?
There's something going on with her. The father admits I've always been able to tell, like, have connection to the spirit world just like she has. And his wife's like, what? You've never told me this. And so we have this moment where he is starting to sense things, and he has that moment where he sees like Toshio's head, like, coming up out of the floor.
Pete Wright: That's so weird.
Andy Nelson: And it's like super creepy. And we the the camera, dollies out of that area and into the the hall, and we see the mother down the hall. And this happens twice. The first time, we come down there, and she's just sitting there, and then she totally starts laughing. Like, she's gone crazy, and it's at something Kiyoko has done.
Like, she's laughing at something. It's very kind of creepy the way she's doing it. But the second time that happens, it's so disturbing because it's it the the father comes crawling out of the the the room freaked out that he's just seen Toshio's head, and he kind of collapses as he's trying to get out. And down the hall in the background, we just see the grandmother, and she's, like, in a position where it looks like her head is through the door, but hung up on something that's holding it up because her body is just kind of propped up in this awkward way where she's kind of hanging out of the doorway. It's that's all we get.
We just see that, okay, grandma's dead. We just see her head hanging out, and later we find out that grandpa's been killed. He's got his face pressed into the classroom. But it's like those moments, like, I I I love how Shimizu captures those because it's just it's something in the background, but it was just terrifying to see that just sitting there.
Pete Wright: It it's right in that moment, though, too, where we have the the face of Kayako appear in the shadow on the ceiling. Yeah. Right? That that is a a wicked haunting view as she looks up and the shadow just kind of expands. It it has real Bram Stoker's Dracula vibes, you know, where the shadows of Draculia have their own sort of whimsy to them.
They do their own thing. I I loved that whole concept that, again, the curse is it's sort of expanding. It has agency beyond just what it affects with people. I think that state change is really neat.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. No. I I it's it's fascinating. And this is also where we have, like, the the kid, Nobuyuki, he's still just sitting there. Right?
He's just still totally mute and just, I don't know, somehow unaffected. I don't know why. And and this is just one of those interesting things. Like, is it because of having been there to kind of witness through that weird TV flashback of what had happened to the teacher and his the teacher's wife and baby? Is it because he's been in the presence of Kaeiko and Toshio and has seen all these people get kind of taken and destroyed by them.
Who knows? But somehow he gets like, I don't even understand how he gets out of here. Right? Like, he goes back to his parent. Did his dad did something happen to his dad, or did his dad make it?
Pete Wright: Oh, man. I'm trying to
Andy Nelson: remember now if if Tatsuya
Pete Wright: What happened to Tatsuya? I don't know.
Andy Nelson: Because Tatsuya comes over to the house, and he like, to his parents' house, and he sees that this is when Kyoko is still just she's kind of gone kooky, and she's just sitting there. He's the oh, yeah. Because he goes over to the no. No.
Pete Wright: He moves he moves them to his parents' house.
Andy Nelson: Right? He moves her and hers and Nobuyuki to his parents' house. And then he decides he's gonna go check on the couple that bought the house. So that's when we have the scene where he's talking to, Yoshimi and and And Hiroshi. And he my recollection is
Pete Wright: It's right before the frying pan.
Andy Nelson: That that he freaks out and just leaves. We don't see her Yeah. Kill him.
Pete Wright: No. No. And and Oh, no.
Andy Nelson: No. She does kill him. She does kill him. That's right. She she kills Tatsuya.
Already killed yeah. She's already killed her husband. And when he shows up to investigate, that's when she's talking like
Pete Wright: Oh, because he kills him after she kills Hiroshi.
Andy Nelson: She kills her husband first. Right. Yeah.
Pete Wright: Right. Right. Right. Right. Right.
Okay. Yep. Yep. All coming back together.
Andy Nelson: So so Nobuyuki is the only one who survives. He's a high school kid, and now he's living by himself, but presumably with a lot of ghosts. And and that's when we kind of follow these police officers. And now we have, detectives, Kameo and Izuka who are following him.
Pete Wright: Thank you for your service.
Andy Nelson: Figure out because because he's like the only guy well, yeah, There's that whole bit where they first go to visit the other guy who had he was the one, I think, in the in the first film who's investigating the dead
Pete Wright: girl. Yeah. Who is officer Yoshikawa.
Andy Nelson: The random jaw. Somebody else's jaw stuck in her foot.
Pete Wright: So bad. Oh god.
Pete Wright: Yeah. So he's now he's been driven insane Yeah. Because of those investigations.
Andy Nelson: Right. And now these two are are kind of like one of them is like, I've had it. This is too much. And it's interesting because he's the one who's just like, I I can't do this anymore. Too much creepy crap is going on.
I want out. And if you're smart, you can leave too. He goes into this is great. Because he goes into the room, and then his partner, Izuka, is talking to another officer who sees the case file that he's holding. He's like, oh, she was just here.
And it's a picture of Kayako. He's like, what are you talking about? She's like, yeah. She just I don't know where she went. And he's like, what do you mean she was here?
And and she's like, why? Did she do something? She's dead.
Pete Wright: She's dead.
Andy Nelson: Like, this whole thing. And meanwhile, while they're having this conversation, we see Kayako walk behind them kind of out of focus and into the room where Kamio was, and then Kamio screams and freaks out. And and that and then she she appears under the bench. Like, they run into the room. He comes out.
He's freaked out, and she pops out from under the bench and presumably kills him. So Everybody's dead. Right.
Pete Wright: Wait. So she so I know Kamio is killed. Izuka
Andy Nelson: Kamio is killed. We don't know about Izuka. Like, all we know is that he and this other detective ran into the room after Kamio came out freaking out. So we if there's again, if they if they had kind of done a third v cinema version of the story and continued
Pete Wright: it Yeah. Maybe we would have followed the police.
Andy Nelson: I imagine we'd be following Izuka. I imagine we would be following the other three kids that, that, Nobuyuki is at at school. Like, they're all do, I don't know, cleanup. They must like, some kids must be chosen every day to stay behind to just kinda do classroom cleanup. Right.
Yeah.
Pete Wright: Right. And that's where they visit the Sayiki house on Adair, and then they go and drink the drink of the soju of the sake.
Andy Nelson: It's not those kids, though, is it?
Pete Wright: Yeah. The I think it's the same kids.
Andy Nelson: Well, because there was one other boy and two girls, and I thought it was all it was three girls at the house. Okay. I guess they could they could be two of the girls, but I don't think it was another boy. Oh, wait. Were there two boys and two girls in the classroom with
Pete Wright: I think there were I think there were three girls. No.
Andy Nelson: It was two girls, two boys, because they're all making fun of each other, and then and then Nobuyuki. And Nobuyuki's the silent one who's cleaning up. The two girls are cleaning up, and they're irritated because the two boys are doing no work.
Pete Wright: How well do you here we go. How well do you trust Wikipedia? The plot summary. A second kayako appear okay. So we have the thing.
Both ghosts corner Nobuyuki.
Andy Nelson: I'm looking at it. They don't even talk about how many how many kids are helping him clean the classroom.
Pete Wright: Oh, you're right. It's separate. Three schoolgirls named Saori, Chiaki, and Ayano. So that's a different set of girls is what we're saying. I misinterpreted the cleanup to the girls scene.
So there's there are two little pieces there.
Andy Nelson: Because the cleanup, they never nothing that is ever discussed. Oh, they leave. They all leave because he's there by himself.
Pete Wright: Yes. He's alone. But it does what happens to the cleanup crew, we don't we don't care about.
Andy Nelson: That would be for the third film if they'd ever made it.
Pete Wright: Yeah. It's just him and the multiple Kayakos. But then we get the denomol where the three girls, they go to the Seiki house, and they drink from the sake they find lying around. Who does that? It takes more of
Andy Nelson: a kids. While. Are you telling me? Come on. Young kids finding a bottle of alcohol?
Are you saying like, you're saying, who does this? You would've. 12 year old Pete? Hey. Well, look.
I dare you. What is this?
Pete Wright: Whiskey? Don't know. Let's I would've and find out. I would've done that. You're right.
Shut up. They find that it tastes bad because it's sake.
Andy Nelson: Well, not because it's sake. Because it's because
Pete Wright: it's been No. Because it's sake and sake tastes bad. Like, if it's if it's like road sake, they like found floor sake, they're like, sake. That would have been horrific if these kids had had their taste of sake that they found on the floor and they enjoyed it.
Andy Nelson: They find it tastes horrible because this is the sake that's been in the house.
Pete Wright: I mean, I know. I know. I get that. But I'm also saying sake is bad.
Andy Nelson: No. Sake is delicious.
Pete Wright: It is when it's like just the right temperature. Like, floor sake is is risky. It's just what I'm saying. Floor sake is risky.
Andy Nelson: Pete, you're again forgetting the 12 year olds. They will and honestly, 12 year olds would all find it terrible anyway.
Pete Wright: Yes. That's the point.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Yeah.
Pete Wright: So they find it terrible. How are
we to believe that it's horror sake? It could be just sake, and sake tastes bad to 12 year olds. But they also notice something bad has happened. It's not things are not good in the house.
Andy Nelson: Well, what's interesting about this, what I found fascinating is it's so low budget. Like, Shimizu clearly was just, like, out of money at this point or time, and was just like, we have this whole final story, but we don't have time to film it. You know what? Let's just get a shot of the house, and we'll just have voiceovers tell the story. This entire last bit is just we just hear the voices of the three girls in the house while we look at a wide shot of the house with the wind kind of rustling the breeze.
That's it. And I found that to be a really kind of interesting and effective way to kind of, like, keep us separated. And now, again, we're kind of outside all of all of it, but we're still witnessing this, final act happening, which I thought was pretty interesting.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Me too. Yeah. So there's, there's good stuff going on in this movie. Did I like it as much as the first one?
No. I didn't for many reasons. I'm gonna call them me reasons. It's fine. But I'm really looking forward to the next one.
Andy Nelson: But is that be so so excise the first half hour, I mean, are your reasons outside of that? Like, with what the meat you have of the rest of the story, are you having issues with where the story goes and how it continues?
Pete Wright: I'm having less of a problem after the our conversation here. I really I mean, I'm I feel like I'm I'm getting some of the nuance. But the so I've watched it twice, and both times, I'm thinking, okay. Show me something show me something different than was in the first movie. Right?
Show me something that that isn't just a continuation of exactly what we've seen before because that's what I'm set up as an audience member to expect. And I don't feel like there is enough in the second movie because it's so short, because we don't have the the there there's sort of minimal narrative progression. You know, I you'll recall, I had issues with sort of the vignetted approach of the first movie, but I still don't feel like there's a whole lot of character development. And there is a sense for me of kind of the the predictability and diminishing returns of Kayako's, you know, spook factor. Like, I get it.
I get what she's doing, and it just feels a little bit samey to me as we go through the piece. What was originally a really interesting thematic exploration becomes a repetitive, thin, thematic ex exploration in the second movie. And that's why I'm really leaning so hard in watching these back to back and skipping the recycled footage because I do think if you're watching it in one setting, you don't have to deal with any of that that implies a second movie. It just really it it leans in on the good stuff from the first one and actually sort of finishes where the first one ended rather than pretending to expand the universe in any substantive way.
Andy Nelson: I think that's all I mean, I can see all of those points. It's hard to argue with any of that. It it it definitely makes sense. It definitely feels like this is kind of an issue with this, with this story and telling it this way, where it's just like you're kind of stuck in this in this v cinema structure that they used at the time where we're getting a rehash because that's kind of how they were doing these films at the time. And it's just it's part of the nature of the beast that we're kind of left with here.
And I think, you know, I I don't think it's the end of I I don't think it ruins it for me, but I can definitely see your point. And I can see, you know, there is a place where these two as one complete film may actually work better and more effectively and give us kind of that better a picture of that that kind of whole story. You know, I I certainly can see that. In the end, I don't find that it really bugs me too much. I I just think that it's fun.
And I like I said, I really enjoyed these particular stories the way that we're kind of continuing this development of of the ghosts. And, yeah, we're not I mean, by the time we get to this film as opposed to the first film, we're no longer digging into the reasons as far as why Kayako is doing this, what happened to her and Toshio and the cat. Now by the time we get to the second film, it's just let's just introduce a bunch of people, and we're gonna watch the ghost kill them over and over and over again. And that's kind of that's kind of where we're left with this as its own separate film. I just happen to really enjoy the continuation of it and to see where it goes and how it expands, especially by the time we get to Nobuyuki's story in the classroom and that kind of weird, not really understandable, but definitely creepy expansion of Kaeyko, literal expansion of Kaeyko into a bunch of Kaeyagos.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. So, again, I'm really looking forward to the next movie and to see where it goes. And and I think I may even rewatch the American remake as a part of this just as extra credit.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I'm I'm curious to kind of revisit those two. I may save that for after I've watched the grudge two due on the grudge two because in release order, it was these four films recovering for the series, then the three American films before the Japanese versions continued after that. So I may I don't know. I we'll see.
Yeah. We we'll see. But I am curious to revisit that and see exactly how they did it.
Pete Wright: So for specifically for you, because you've been watching so many j horror movies for CinemaScope, do you have a different sort of appreciation of Juwan as as a franchise than you did before you started this this journey? Where does it fit for you?
Andy Nelson: Well, I mean, I think just the the nature of kind of the j horror style of storytelling is you're getting you know, it's less slashers and things, and you're getting more kind of psychological. And and I I I think that this is a blend of some of that. We definitely have some blood between these as far as ripping jaws off and, the, you know, beating of the the baby in the bag. Like, there are some pretty gruesome elements. But I think it's it's kind of the unsettling nature of just how things unfold that are just unexplained and just like this the longevity of this curse that Kayako will never stop.
And I think that's an interesting element that you end up seeing that type of story in in j horror where they're not necessarily like, it often in, like, an American ghost story type of thing, there's a malevolent spirit that seems to be doing these things or haunting this place or whatever, and our protagonist has to find the one thing or the the clue that can prove who actually killed this person. And and once that's done and the person is brought to justice, that ghost spirit is freed. Right? And it's kind of like everything is is pure now. This house is clean.
You don't get that here. It's it's really like, nope. And I think that's an interesting element that you see here and something that just kind of like you'll see in some of the j horror where it's just like there's really not an easy solution to solve these things.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm glad we're doing it. This is a great introduction for me.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I know. I'm I'm having a great time with it. So, with that, we'll be right back. But first, our credits.
Pete Wright: The next reel is a production of True Story FM, engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Adam Dib, Steven Bedall, Oriole Novella, and Eli Catlin. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at d-numbers.com, boxofficemojo.com, imdb.com, and wikipedia.org. Find the show at truestory.fm. And if your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.
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Pete Wright: Andy, what has your crack team, your real crackerjack team of research budget researchers brought forth in terms of the numbers?
Andy Nelson: I sometimes, hate covering these types of movies. It is so difficult to find anything financial. As we know from last week's discussion, these first two films were made on a low budget. They were shot in nine days. Two of them.
Both of them. The entire thing, nine days. And like last week, that's about all I have to report. Other than this was released on video 03/25/2000, about a month after the first one. That's all I got.
Sorry.
Pete Wright: It was released a month later.
Pete Wright: There is just we're in a weird alt universe where these were released as separate movies. Right? Just all of the data lines up that says this should have been one movie. I'm gonna I that's gonna be on my headstone.
Andy Nelson: Well, but you have to remember it's TV, and TV does things differently. Like, you know, they're just it's an episodic sort of nature, and so they like Yeah. Just telling things this way. So
Pete Wright: Alright. Well, we do have an adaptation to talk about, which I know are we gonna like, is that a thing we're gonna do? Should we
Andy Nelson: do a live read? I'd love it would be so fun to get a hold of this. There was a stage adaptation made of Ju On that is the plot of the curse and the curse two. And it's called do Ju On released in 2023 or is developed in 2023. I actually don't know how often it's been performed.
If it's been performed, I don't know the extent of it. But as of 2023, somebody has adapted these first two due on the curse films into a stage play. Honestly, I think that could work. This is a really creepy and simply told way to kind of craft a ghost story. And and with the jumping back and forth nature that we have of locations and scenes and characters and everything, I think that you could do something pretty interesting with this.
I I think it would be actually a fun thing to watch. Totally. And honestly, like, I think about this. I don't know if I've ever actually seen a horror play. Have you?
Is that a thing?
Pete Wright: Misery. I saw misery as a play.
Andy Nelson: Is that they made that a play?
Pete Wright: Yeah. And it's not only that, it's immersive. So it's it's a it's in a black box and all the audience is sitting in chairs on the set. Like, the actors are wandering around in between you. Like, at the kitchen table, those sequences, there are six seats at the table.
Four of them are audience members, and the actors will sit at the table. It's very disconcerting. Wow. Yeah. Interesting.
So that's the one. That's the one I've seen. But they do the hobbling. They sure as hell do the hobbling, Andy. Yeah.
And it's awful to see them. That it that trick works.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Interesting. Wow. Yeah. Okay.
Well, it's just it's an interesting thing because you don't think about horror often when it comes to stage plays, but I don't know why they couldn't. I just never really hear about it. And I mean, I feel like
Pete Wright: it's Sweeney Todd.
Andy Nelson: But that's not I mean, okay. There's a lot of murder and stuff, but it's like singing, and it's more it's it's more like a psychological drama than an actual horror. Just because he's killing people doesn't make it horrific.
Pete Wright: Really? Really? Like, you just said that on a recording.
Pete Wright: I think it's the definition of what makes it horrific.
Pete Wright: Killing people that have tons of blood
Andy Nelson: and then
Pete Wright: they eat it.
Andy Nelson: That's what makes it horrific, but it's not scary, I guess, is what I'd say. Like, that's not a scary story.
Pete Wright: Okay. Maybe maybe I'll give you that. Yeah. Alright. I just as an aside, just because I saw this this morning, Matt Reif is one of my, is one of my favorite stand up comedians.
And he and a buddy just announced He's rife with humor. He's I'm gonna move right on through that. That's your one dad joke of the day. And so he and his and a a buddy of his announced this morning that they bought Ed and, what's their names? The Conjuring People.
Andy Nelson: Oh, yeah. That that person. I just yeah. The the, Ed and Lorraine.
Pete Wright: Ed and Lorraine's house and their their their collection. The conjuring house, and their collection of doodads and Annabelle and all of the everything, and they're gonna turn it into an Airbnb. Like, you you're gonna be able to rent the place for a weekend and go explore the house. Yeah. Is that a stunt that we should somehow do?
Andy Nelson: You can. I I really don't feel like I need to actually have stayed in that house.
Pete Wright: Okay. I'm gonna see if we could do one for the for the school. We're gonna go stay at the school from
Andy Nelson: You and the Sitting in the Dark team need to go spend the We're
Pete Wright: gonna have a sleepover.
Andy Nelson: I've seen a lot of movies about people who say, let's spend the night in this haunted place. It'll be totally fine.
Pete Wright: It's gonna be great.
Andy Nelson: Oh, jeez. Well, I really enjoyed this. I'm enjoying what, Shimizu is doing on a low budget, very low budget. That's all I know is it's just low. I'm I'm curious to see how it continues from here.
I but I at this point, I can see why they would wanna move forward. I'm having a great time with this, and I'm looking forward to continuing this franchise and seeing how this grows from this point on. Me too. Alright. Well, we will be right back for our ratings.
But first, here's the trailer for next week's movie, Juon the Grudge.
Pete Wright: From the creators of the international award winning sensation Ringu, there is a curse born of a powerful rage. It gathers in the places where the dead once lived. And if you cross its path, you die. But now, one survivor will learn the truth about a brutal murder, a missing child, and the chain that can't be broken. Juwan, look into the eyes of evil.
Andy Nelson: In the world of cinema, there are films that entertain, films that inspire, and films that haunt. There are the stories that linger long after the credits roll, the ones that creep into your dreams and lurk in the shadows of your mind. These are the films that the next reel was made for. As a member of the next reel, you'll gain access to a world of cinema that few dare to explore. You'll delve into the haunted corners of film history, unearthing the stories behind the most chilling unforgettable tales ever told on screen.
But that's just the beginning. With your membership starting at just $5 a month, you'll receive bonus episodes that venture deep into the lore of cinema, exploring the tales that have left their mark on film history. From the ghostly to the avant garde, from the classic to the cutting edge, you'll discover new dimensions to
Pete Wright: the films you thought you knew.
Andy Nelson: You'll get early access to episodes that will expand your cinematic horizons and a personal podcast feed that delivers exclusive bonus content directly to your ears. In our exclusive Discord channels, you'll join a community of fellow cinephiles ready to dissect the most intriguing scenes, unravel the mysteries of the most enigmatic films, and celebrate the artistry of the medium we all love. And with ad free episodes, you'll be able to fully immerse yourself in the world of each film without any distractions to break the spell. All of this for less than the price of a movie ticket each month. But be warned, once you join the next reel at truestory.fm/join, there's no turning back.
You'll be marked as one of us, a member of a secret society devoted to the art of cinema in all its forms. You'll see the world through a lens tinted by the films you've discovered, always searching for the next story to challenge, move, or haunt you. If you're ready to join us on this cinematic journey, head to truestory.fm/join and become a member. Because at the next reel, every film is a story worth exploring, and every exploration is a chance to discover something new about the art form we love. Don't wait.
Join us at truestory.fm/join, and start your journey into the haunted heart of cinema today.
Pete Wright: Letterbox, Nandy. Letterbox. Do you know what Letterboxd is? You live there. You have a second mortgage on your Letterboxd account.
Letterboxd.com/ the next reels where you can find all of our movies for the HQ account, and that's where we're gonna put our review here. Andy, what are you gonna do with this movie?
Andy Nelson: Like I said, I really enjoyed this. I had a great time with it. And now that I say that, I have to I can't remember what I rated the first one. So I have to just check. Like, did I give that three stars?
Because I feel
Pete Wright: like I was three stars in a heart on the first one.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. And I feel like I'm probably like this, I don't know. Because it all is so much one family as far as this the way that the film unfolds, Like, I have a hard time giving this anything different. Like, I just think it works really well. I had a great time with it.
Three and a half is what I gave that one. Three and a half is what I'm gonna give this one. Three and a half and a heart. Okay.
Pete Wright: I'm I I'm really struggling with that part because I like this this part less than the first part for reasons. But do I I don't do I like it a heartless or a starless? Because it's either two stars and a heart or three stars. No heart.
Andy Nelson: But, I mean, you'd watch it again. So I don't know why you wouldn't give it a heart.
Pete Wright: So you're saying I should just go with three stars and a heart?
Andy Nelson: Yeah. You can you know, there's nuances within. Like, I'll understand. But, I mean, the first half of the first thirty minutes, you still rated three stars and a heart from your last watch.
Pete Wright: I did. Is that
Pete Wright: I know. It's lunacy. This movie has put me in a real quandary. I'm in a quandary.
Andy Nelson: You might be. Screw it. I'm gonna
Pete Wright: give it I'm gonna give it three stars in a heart, and my review will be resoundingly negative for that kind of of star rating.
Andy Nelson: Well, that averages out to three and a quarter, which will round up to three and a half over at our account on Letterbox. Three and a half and a heart. You can find us there at the next reel. You can find me there at soda creek film, and you can find Pete there at Pete Wright. So what did you think about Joo On the Curse two?
We would love to hear your thoughts. Hop into the ShowTalk channel over in our Discord community where we will be talking about the movie this week.
Pete Wright: When the movie ends.
Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins. Just as a little side note of interest. Yeah. The title of this is a made up word that Shimizu came up with. And it it actually at one point, it was it's it's a concatenation of the Japanese words for ghost and curse and grudge.
They're they're really originally, it was like, there was something else. Because, like, might be part of curse and on might be part of grudge, and then something else was part of ghost. I can't remember exactly how it went, but he dropped that one because it was too much. And so it's just Ju On. And that's technically the just the title of all four of these films.
It's just Ju On.
Pete Wright: Ju On.
Andy Nelson: But they just pull the curse part out for the English of these first two and the grudge part out of it for the second two. And I think that's really, really funny.
Pete Wright: That honestly makes it better. If they're all just the same title, then I should watch them as one movie. That's okay.
Andy Nelson: There you go. Alright. Letterbox give it, Andrew. As letterboxed always doeth.
Pete Wright: I am, I I went by review activity, and I'm choosing the top one because he says he says the loud part out loud. Bob McQueen gives it two and a half stars with a heart. He says, the guy bitching about the wrong coffee beans and his egg not served over easy deserve to be bashed in the back of the head with the frying pan. This would work much better as a super cut with the first movie. Does that version exist?
Because this one pads its runtime with at least the first thirty minutes with scenes from the first film. And while I did enjoy some of the creepier parts, it kinda ends out of nowhere just when I was really getting interested in ghost shenanigans. Oh, shenanigans.
Andy Nelson: Well, it is interesting because this franchise thus far, like, we're not following one character. Yeah. Other than maybe Kayako. Right? I mean, Kayako is really, like, the threat through the entire thing.
So that's that is interesting. And to that end, yeah, it it just ends. We're not getting a real wrap up to the story. And so but, you know, I guess that's the nature of these.
Pete Wright: What do you got?
Andy Nelson: I've got a three and a half and a heart by a dead Lazar who has this to say, I love how the scares all happen during the daytime in these films. And I do too. Think that's actually another really nice element that, like, the only night scene that I remember in the two films I I know, like, in the teacher story in the first film, like, by the time he comes back downstairs, I think that it's dark. But the only real night that we see well, it's that same scene.
Pete Wright: The murder.
Andy Nelson: It's when it's the baby murder. Yeah. He's out. He's and she and Kayako comes to him out of the trash bag outside. So that's all night time.
That's it. I think that's it.
Pete Wright: That's awful. Like, I haven't looked at street trash the same way since I watched that movie, the first one. Do do
Andy Nelson: you look at street trash often? Is that
Pete Wright: Now I do because you don't know what's coming out of it.
Andy Nelson: Always walk on the other side of the street from any street
Pete Wright: trash bags. Get to the other side of the street. You'd never know what's coming out of it.
Pete Wright: Thanks, Letterboxd. The things
Pete Wright: we teach on this show. The things we teach people.
Andy Nelson: There's always learning, Pete. Always learning.
Pete Wright: Mhmm.